Aicon Art is pleased to present Past Comes to Present, a group exhibition featuring artworks by Humaira Abid, Hasnat Mehmood, Tazeen Qayyum, and Talha Rathore. Bringing together four contemporary Pakistani artists whose practices emerge from the rigorous discipline of miniature painting, the exhibition considers how an inherited visual language can be transformed across geographies, mediums, and generations. Now living and working across the North American diaspora, these artists extend the precision, intimacy, and formal refinement of the miniature into distinct contemporary vocabularies. On the occasion of this exhibition, Salima Hashmi offers the following text:
Visual surprises are rare today amid the rampant divergences in art practices, yet the highlighting of a fading historical process can unveil a fascinating reinvention genre.
The art practices of Humaira Abid, Hasnat Mehmood, Tazeen Qayyum and Talha Rathore, all originate in Lahore from the lineage of the miniature painting ustaads—Haji Sharif of the court of Patiala, Sheikh Shuja Ullah of the court of Alwar, and Bashir Ahmad of Lahore. Under their tutelage at the National College of Arts (NCA), these artists were led through the rigour of the miniature painting process: the preparation of surfaces, the making of brushes, grinding of pigments, the delicate techniques of drawing and the meticulous layering of colour. Each artist spent weeks if not months perfecting the quality of line and colour, carefully mastering every stroke of the brush.
All four artists in this exhibition are now living in the North American diaspora and their relocation has created insurgencies in the wake of their individual odysseys, encounters and exposures. These have culminated in distinct and individual vocabularies as they blossomed in directions undreamt of by their illustrious mentors. But even as they invent new terms of engagement pulsating with ideas and startling innovations, the tenacity of tradition lingers, finding a voice in the enticement of the beauty of their mark making.
Humaira Abid’s fearless merging of hand carved wood and painted image creates affecting conversations around a woman’s existential challenges. She probes the demands of motherhood, the underpinnings of patriarchy, and the potential for resistance.
Hasnat Mehmood references both antiquity and nature in his work. Explorations of the human form are framed by the brooding emblematic image of a crow. The juxtapositions are layered and enigmatic.
Tazeen Qayyum’s meditative works are both poetic and uplifting. Linking a trance-like dedication to the written word, she immerses herself in the act of repetitive mark making. The expertise and patience evident in these renderings are compelling and elegant.
Talha Rathore’s gentle odes to symbolic forms evoke nostalgia stemming from memories of illustrated manuscripts. Not replicas, but lyrical interpretive configurations which were once resident in miniature painting. Other works in her oeuvre trace the unfolding of peculiar embryonic creatures possibly straining towards maturity. Of the four artists, Talha Rathore’s paintings retain the romance of history and pursuit of beauty.
Humaira Abid, Hasnat Mehmood, Tazeen Qayyum and Talha Rathore provide convincing moments of self-reflection and genuine thoughtfulness. The works collectively speak of the artists’ potential to answer questions of identity and their role in the search for meaning and elusive beauty in turbulent times.